Dr. Steven Holen

presenter at BC II

Steven Holen, Ph.D., is curator of archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS). He joined the Museum in 2001 after completing his doctorate in anthropology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Holen has more than 25 years experience in Great Plains archaeology and extensive experience with public education in a museum setting. His research has focused on the Clovis people-the earliest well-known North American human culture about 11,000 years old. He has studied Clovis use and long-distance movement of stone tools in the Central Great Plains of North America. He has also excavated several pre-Clovis mammoth sites that date between 14,000 and 19,000 years old. These sites have heavily fractured limb bones and this evidence suggests humans were breaking the bones for use in tool production.

From 1999 to 2001, Dr. Holen worked as an archaeologist and tribal liaison for USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Huron, South Dakota, where he directed the agency's archaeological program and acted as liaison to nine tribal groups in the area. Previous to this position, he was a research assistant professor and public archaeologist at the Nebraska Archaeological Survey at the University of Nebraska State Museum. During his position at the University of Nebraska (1993 - 1999), Dr. Holen directed the archaeological research program and administered a major cooperative agreement between the museum and the U.S Bureau of Reclamation to conduct surveys and excavations in Nebraska and Kansas. He also worked closely with the University's Native American Graves and Repatriation Act compliance efforts, as well as numerous public groups including amateur archaeologists, museum members, students, local historical societies and the general public.

Areas of Expertise: Paleo-Indian Occupation of the Western Great Plains; Public Education in Archaeology, Native American Archaeology of the Great Plains; Early Human Occupation of North America; Geoarcheology and paleoecology; stone tool technology and long-distance movement of stone tools across the Great Plains; and the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act.